Headlines

Zodiac Pool Solutions SAS, the Paris-based swimming pool and spa manufacturer, filed Thursday for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. as part of its debt-restructuring effort now under way in the U.K., The Wall Street Journal reported. Formerly known as Zodiac Marine & Pool, Zodiac Pool filed for protection under Chapter 15—the section of the Bankruptcy Code that deals with international insolvencies—in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Compensation payments totalling €10 million have been paid to more than 3,100 depositors of Berehaven Credit Union, the Central Bank has said. The credit union in Cork closed its doors last week and a liquidator was appointed following High Court orders issued on behalf of the Central Bank, the Irish Times reported. Cheques have now been posted to over 85 per cent of the credit union’s members. The bank said remaining deposits are being progressed “as quickly as possible” and it is expected that further payments will be made shortly.

The original Mastertronic actually disappeared in the mid-90s, but it was reborn in 2004 when one of its co-founders, Frank Herman, helped negotiate the purchase of the name from Sega. Sadly, the UK-based games publisher, now known as the Mastertronic Group, is once again facing a bleak future, as it has announced plans to close its headquarters, lay off 40 percent of its staff and completely exit the business of publishing physical copies of games, PC Gamer reported.

The head of Russia's state development bank has ruled out taking part in a rescue of ailing miner Mechel, possibly making a rival government-promoted debt-for-equity deal involving creditors a more likely option to save the company, Reuters reported. Russia has been looking into ways to help Mechel, a coal-to-steel group with $8.6 billion in debt and 70,000 workers, for several months and has proposed two schemes, both involving a change in ownership.

Talks aimed at a last-minute settlement between Argentina and holdout creditors collapsed late Wednesday, and a court-appointed mediator said the country would "imminently" be in default, The Wall Street Journal reported. At a news conference after talks with the mediator ended, Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, who had led the country's delegation to New York, said "we won´t sign an agreement that would compromise Argentina´s future." A spokeswoman later said negotiations would continue, without giving a timetable. The likely default would be Argentina's second in 13 years.

Banco Espírito Santo has posted a first-half net loss of €3.58bn that exposes the full extent of the Portuguese lender’s exposure to the financial woes engulfing its main shareholder, the Espírito Santo family group, the Financial Times reported. BES, Portugal’s largest listed lender by assets, said “extraordinary events” had resulted in impairment and contingency costs totalling €4.25bn and had cut its capital strength to below the regulatory minimum. The record loss wipes out BES’s existing capital buffer of €2.1bn and implies that it will have to raise fresh capital.

Bombardier Inc's unexpected aerospace restructuring announcement last week casts an uncomfortable light on the division's ongoing struggles, with credit rating firms uncertain about its longer term prospects. The restructuring, which was announced July 23, eight days before the release of second-quarter results on Thursday, is the latest bad news for the beleaguered unit, bruised in recent years by multiple delays in its cash-draining CSeries program and by shrinking market share for its existing aircraft portfolio.

A new EU financial services tsar charged with regulating the City of London and ensuring financial stability in the region would be appointed in Brussels under new plans being considered by Jean-Claude Juncker, the incoming European Commission president, the Financial Times reported. Mr Juncker is weighing the creation of a powerful standalone finance directorate, which some London-based banks fear will tilt wider EU financial policy towards the eurozone.

Struggling Spanish pizza delivery business Telepizza is set to refinance existing loans with a new first lien loan and a new Payment In Kind (PIK) loan that will help it escape an expensive debt restructuring, banking sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The refinancing will repay most lenders in full. Most of an existing PIK loan will be swapped for equity and private equity firm KKR is making a new 180 million euro investment in the company. Private equity firm Permira bought Telepizza in 2006 for 962 million euros ($1.31 billion).

The archbishop of Cyprus has taken the unusual step of urging thousands of small investors in the island’s biggest bank to reject a €1bn share sale agreed with international fund managers and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development when it comes up for approval next month at an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders, the Financial Times reported.